Missing plane found in Idaho: no survivors

By The Associated Press January 10, 2014 08:02 pm

BOISE (AP) — The wreckage of a small plane carrying five people, including a Silicon Valley executive, was found Friday after vanishing in the central Idaho mountains on Dec. 1, the Valley County sheriff’s office said. There were no survivors.

The single-engine plane was occupied by 51-year-old pilot, Dale Smith, a software executive from San Jose, Calif.; his son, Daniel Smith and his wife, Sheree Smith; and daughter Amber Smith with her fiance, Jonathon Norton.

The plane was flying from Baker City, where the family had been spending the Thanksgiving holiday, to Montana, where Daniel and Sheree Smith live, on Dec. 1 when it disappeared in the mountains 150 miles northeast of Boise.

Dale Smith reported engine trouble and sought information about a backcountry landing strip where he hoped to put the plane down safely.

Authorities had suspended the search for the aircraft in mid-December.

According to Federal Aviation Administration records, Smith, an executive and co-founder of San Jose-based SerialTek, obtained his pilot’s license in 2005.